Hurricane Sandy Anxiety Tracker: Category Four and Climbing

It’s an odd day when the first thing you do upon waking is open your curtains, narrow your eyes suspiciously, and say to yourself, “It’s not even windy out.” And yet: despite the skeptical mumblings of at least one Manhattanite, Hurricane Sandy, long-rumored destroyer of Halloween, is nearly here, and aimed squarely at the Jersey shore. The New York Timesreports: “Forecasters say the storm is on a scale that weather historians say has little precedent along the East Coast. Landfall is predicted on Monday night somewhere between central New Jersey and southern Delaware. But most of the eastern United States will feel Sandy’s effects, making the exact landfall spot less important than the overall trajectory.”

One of the few bits of good news: it is a great thing that The New York Times has temporarily suspended its paywall so that even non-subscribers can spend the day, ConEd willing, scaring themselves with the excellent hurricane tracker—or amusing themselves with contributed-reporting novellas like these: